National Holiday - Korean Style

The egg truck I see every morning on
my walk to the Suwon Station

A couple of views of the street I take to the Suwon
Station

Today is Constitution Day in South Korea. Now, back home in the States, you would be confident that your husband was not working today, right? Not in Korea, it really seems up to the company whether it is a working day or not. My husband had originally decided to make it a four day weekend, taking Monday off and then the holiday today (Tuesday).

While we were at breakfast in the hotel yesterday, two co-workers of Curt's (my husband) came to eat and then mentioned that the company had changed the holiday Friday night from Tuesday to Monday. My husband never got the message. It was a good thing he had decided to take Monday off. I was really surprised at this change but my husband, who has travelled to Korea and China said that it is not uncommon. He was just surprised that no one told him!

He also told me that if a holiday falls on a weekend, the company doesn't give you the Friday or Monday off like we do in the States. It's all about culture! Oh, by the way, he did decided to go into work today. It was suppose to be a rainy day and the hotel room was getting a lot smaller for him.

I also had a major crisis. I am probably one of the few that wears sunglasses over here. I can't live without them. One of the screws became really loose on my frames and it was making the leg really wobbly and I was afraid I would loose the screw. Oh yes, I still wore them when I needed to. I found a sunglass store near the Suwon Station and decided to see if they could fix them. In the States, I've never been charged for even a missing screw but who knew and I was willing to pay anything. The salesclerk took my glasses, retightened both screws and put it into this steam machine to clean them. He then took them out and thoroughly dried them. I was sooooo thrilled. I asked how much and he said, "Free, only free." I thanked him profusely and now not only are my sunglasses fixed, I can see through them. I can't tell you the last time I cleaned them.